Will WhatsApp, Snapchat and others have to store user data for Indian government?

This report comes from the Economic Times and I wonder how it will end. Of course, the data will not be stored in order to spy and to surveil people. These kinds of request are always related to criminals and law breakers. For an example the judge may ask WhatsApp about text messages of suspected person. However, our messages are very often highly encrypted and even the service provider does not know what we write.

So, let’s back to the topic. Our government is planning to introduce new regulations which will require that all service providers (including Google, Facebook, WhatsApp and Snapchat) to collect and store user information. These new rules are being planned under Section 67C of the Information Technology Act. Currently, it is not known what will be required by the Indian government, because it is very complicated problem. This is simple to write some rules on the paper, but sometimes it may be impossible to realize these requirements.

It means that the message can be encrypted only on devices which belong to the sender or recipient of the message. This problem is clearly visible in Brazil, where the government have blocked WhatsApp service several times. The reason was that the WhatsApp could not provide the information requested by Brazilian police. Even Apple was not able to decrypt the iPhone smartphone on FBI’s request. Unfortunately, lawbreakers know which services provide high quality encryption methods and use them during their criminal activities.

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